Director of Data says it is doubling-down on primary data

An industry troubling, data-driven commentary by Kraft Foods on the state of the data-driven ad industry. Kraft got serious about its ad buys and finds that only about 14% of impressions offered by third party ad networks are accurate. In vetting the ad networks’ data 75-85% of impressions offered were deemed by the brand as unsafe, not viewable, not meeting Kraft’s brand requirements, or the URL is unknown, i.e. treated as fraudulent at Kraft. The ad network industry claims its data is at least 60% accurate.

This cues up my mantra…smart sellers will invest in ways to help customers signal purchase needs/wants more directly. Data comes with that kind of relationship. That kind of relationship produces rock-solid data. Rock-solid data signals the seller what information is relevant for the customer and produces better metrics.Kraft is also watching the customer’s back while tending to its brand, rejecting potentially unsafe websites that might be putting customers systems/data at risk from possible malware or other mayhem.

This is a very visible call-out to the ad industry to up its game if it is going to tout the value of data to marketers.